Monday, October 10, 2011

On the road again but have time to report some recent misadventure with my display cards in the main flight computer. My idea is to drop in 2 SLI capable video cards with 2 DVI display ports each, bridge the 2 cards and hook up my 3 projectors, leaving a spare port for misc maintenance. Since I purchased an EVGA 470 GTX card last year, I thought I'd just buy another and be done. For SLI to work, the processors (and probably the cards) need to be the same.

Vendor of choice (as always) is Amazon. One of their subsidiaries (Universal Media) shipped me the card. It sat in my closet for a couple or months and I finally got around to installing it recently. If you're looking for a review of Universal Media - read on!

Thought I'd install the card and run a test before bridging the 2 together. Just as well - the card malfunctioned. No worries, Amazon has an excellent return policy. Not so fast they told me, take it up with Universal Media. I did. Universal told me it was my problem since I had failed to notify them within their 30 days return policy. Nice move block heads. If I see their name on any purchase through Amazon again, I will be sure to shop elsewhere.

Got on the phone to EVGA and they could not have been more helpful and straightforward. When I told them the card was a direct swap for an identical one, that the old card worked and the new card didn't, the guy figured me for someone who knew what he was doing and didn't ask me to check the power cord, display cable, download the latest driver etc. Within an hour or so a return order was created and I shipped the card back to them for review. While I've been on the road, they have already shipped out a replacement - my good neighbor John picked it up off my doorstep for safe keeping.

On my return, I'll be putting in a quality weekend of effort in the workshop - that is if the German air traffic controllers don't strike on Wednesday. As I said to Dirk today, real life keeps getting in the way of us trying to simulate it...